(no subject)

Hank the cardinal's still at it, attacking the giant shiny four-wheel cardinal in his territory.

And he's winning.

The woman who's the head of the housekeeping department (the guy who keeps talking to me apparently *isn't* the head, which means I now have no idea which person here is head of housekeeping, since I've never been introduced to her) told my co-worker that she has taken to folding her side mirrors in when she parks, so Hank won't mess them up, and she's thinking about getting a big cover for the truck, because Hank's left lots of scratches in the paint.

In other wildlife news, I regret to announce that my cat is getting over her fear of the evil boingy doorstop. This morning, when I was by the door, I hit it again (deliberately, because I am evil that way), and she stared intently at it, then slunk forward and batted it with her paw, jumping back as it boinged. And then slunk forward again and batted it. And again. And then started into shadowboxing with it, first with a right-left combo, and then a rat-a-tat-a-tat-a-tat flurry attack.

I forsee having to put something on top of all the doorstops in the apartment in order to get uninterrupted sleep.

Oh God, not more cat pictures?

Links rather than posting directly to the pictures, so you don't have to be forced to see them. :)

Ready to bat the string, almost like one of those Japanese beckoning cats.

This is as close as we're getting to TEH EVAL DOORSTOP tonight.

CAT. IN. PERSPECTIVE-IVE-IVE-IVE-IVE.

No, I don't have a magic anti-reflective camera flash. That's me going in with Photoshop and making her pupils black.

She had her first vet visit tonight, and it was fairly non-traumatic, except for the part where it took three of us to hold her down and pill her. The shots were OK, taking the temperature was distasteful, but when the door was closed and she was allowed to wander around the examination room, she was perfectly fine, especially when she could go sit in the corner with her back to two walls. This is unusual for cats I've owned - growing up, when we took either of our two cats to the vet, it was like one of those feral cats you see on Animal Cops. You know - the ones where some old lady has about seventy cats living in one house, and they're all feral because they haven't had any human contact, so the ASPCA officers have to catch them with those catchpoles and stuff them into cardboard boxes, and then the vet technicians reach into the boxes (always without protective gloves - I'm impressed), grab the scruff of the neck, and haul out this hissing, spitting ball of fury with four legs outstretched and spinning around in a 360 degree Ball of Furry Death, claws and teeth slashing and biting anything that gets within reach? Our visits to the vet were like that with our previous two cats. This cat settling down on the counter and licking her fur was the strangest sight I'd ever seen, and something I wasn't expecting.

The vet thinks she's about a year old, and she looks to be perfectly healthy, except for a tapeworm, but the pill was for that, so that'll be taken care of soon.

Oh -- and she's a talker. Especially at FOUR-THIRTY IN THE FRICKIN' MORNING WHEN ALL SHE WANTS TO DO IS PLAY.